Free · no account · nothing stored
Check any car’s MOT history
Every test, every mileage reading, every advisory, and the DVLA record. From a number plate.
01 · What comes back
The whole official record
Two government services hold everything worth knowing about a car without paying anybody. Both are free, and Motorfile reads both.
DVSA
MOT history
- Every test since 2005
- Pass or fail, and what failed
- Defects marked dangerous
- Every advisory the tester wrote
- The mileage on the day, every time
- When the current MOT runs out
DVLA
Vehicle enquiry
- Tax status and SORN
- When the tax runs out
- Make, model, colour, fuel, engine
- When it was first registered
- When the logbook was last issued
- Whether it is marked for export
Motorfile
The reading
- Does the mileage read straight?
- Miles a year, against the UK average
- Nearside and offside decoded
- How long the MOT has left
- Whether the two systems agree
- No account, ever
A reading lower than one before it means the odometer has been wound back or the instrument cluster was replaced. It is the single most valuable thing in the free record, and it is the reason to run a check before you hand anybody any money.
This is not an HPI check, and we will never say it is
None of this is in the government record, so no free check has it:
- Outstanding finance
- Stolen markers
- Insurance write-offs
- How many owners it has had
- Outstanding safety recalls
- Service history and what it is worth
Those come from finance houses, the police and insurers, and we have none of them. Buying from a stranger? Get a provenance check as well — that is a different product from a different source, and Motorfile does not sell one.
02 · The catch
There isn’t one
The record is published by the government and costs us nothing to read, so there is nothing here to charge for and nothing to collect. There is no account to make, no email to leave, and no cookie set by this page.
- Account required
- None
- Email address
- Never asked
- Cookies set by this page
- None
- Analytics and trackers
- None
- Plates you look up
- Not kept
- Checks per day
- Unlimited
The plate goes to our lookup service so the DVSA can send the record back, and nothing else goes with it. The full privacy policy is short, for the obvious reason.
03 · Questions
The things people ask first
Is the MOT check really free?
Yes, and unlimited. The DVSA publishes MOT history and the DVLA publishes the vehicle record. Neither costs us anything, so neither costs you anything.
Nothing comes back for my plate.
A car under three years old has not been tested yet, so there is nothing to show. Otherwise it is usually a typo, or a registration that was never issued. We show the official record and never edit it — a detail that is genuinely wrong is wrong at the DVSA and has to be fixed there.
What does “nearside” mean?
The left-hand side, as you sit in the car. Offside is the driver’s side, the right. Both are decoded in every advisory on this page, because being sent to the wrong wheel is worse than not being told.
Does the tax come with the car when I buy it?
No. Road tax is not transferred. The seller gets a refund for the whole months left and whoever buys it has to tax it before driving it away. The status is still worth reading: a car declared SORN has been off the road, which is a question worth asking.
Can I check finance or whether it has been written off?
Not here, and not anywhere free. Those come from finance houses, the police and insurers, not from the government record. Motorfile does not sell a provenance check and does not pretend to be one.
04 · Keeping it
For the car on your driveway
This page reads one car, once. The app keeps it: every advisory translated into plain English with what it costs to put right, the mileage plotted, reminders before the MOT and the tax run out, and a widget on the home screen with the next date on it. Free for one car, and your records never leave the phone.
